In my orginal post, I mentioned I had the RAM at 1:1, the the end of your guide talks about dividers and getting the ram to run at the fastest possible speed. I thought that meant to go back in after everything was stable and choose the fastest speed for the ram, guess I misinterupted that section, I will go put it back to 1:1.

But going back to my orginal posts what are you thoughts on temp and not being able to get stable on anything other than VCore AUTO?

Well, firstly, not all the dividers are stable at all speeds, and it could just be that that particular divider, isnt stable at 333. Try a higher fsb with the RAM 1:1..what happens then? Or a slightly higher FSB with a lower divider?

Have you added some extra voltage to the NB?

I havent heard of a board not being stable on manual vcore before, so if it isnt a faulty board, it may just need a long cmos clear.

Well, firstly, not all the dividers are stable at all speeds, and it could just be that that particular divider, isnt stable at 333. Try a higher fsb with the RAM 1:1..what happens then? Or a slightly higher FSB with a lower divider?

Have you added some extra voltage to the NB?

I havent heard of a board not being stable on manual vcore before, so if it isnt a faulty board, it may just need a long cmos clear.

When I was orginally trying to get a higher FSB, there was a 1:1 ratio, but no matter how much I upped the VCore (max of 1.45) Orthos would fail even at an FSB 333. On AUTO it would run for hours without errors. I did not mess with the dividers until I decided to stick with the 333 FSB.

BTW, when I went to 1:1, the memory benchmark in Sandra dropped by 1/3, so once you have a stable OC which ratio is better?

I have not messed with any other voltages but RAM and VCORE, I am just afraid of something ging wrong, its been a few months but I am stll new to this DIY AND OC scene.

Also, what do you think of the 1.38 VCore for 3.0? Your guide does say leave it on AUTO unless you want to tweak the voltages, so I guess its ok?

It is impossible to say what is reasonable to expect from your particular cpu at a certain voltage because they are all different.

Dont worry about the memory bandwidth for now. That is in the more advanced parts of the guide. Have a read of the first part of the guide that is based on the P5B, it should fill in any gaps, as the P5K guide assumes that you have read the first part

Dont be scared of adding voltage to the NB, I have been running this at full whack since day one, and the same for the P5B's before it. All you need to do, is make sure that there is some airflow through the case, and youll be fine.

Same with the CPU voltage, dont be scared of adding it in small notches, just keep an eye on the temps.

So, in a nutshell, dont worry about too many things at once while you are learning, and see how high your cpu will go at temps that are acceptable for your cooling, and once you settle on an overclock that is good for you, THEN you can go and mess around with the RAM and timings/speeds

It is impossible to say what is reasonable to expect from your particular cpu at a certain voltage because they are all different.

Dont worry about the memory bandwidth for now. That is in the more advanced parts of the guide. Have a read of the first part of the guide that is based on the P5B, it should fill in any gaps, as the P5K guide assumes that you have read the first part

Dont be scared of adding voltage to the NB, I have been running this at full whack since day one, and the same for the P5B's before it. All you need to do, is make sure that there is some airflow through the case, and youll be fine.

Same with the CPU voltage, dont be scared of adding it in small notches, just keep an eye on the temps.

So, in a nutshell, dont worry about too many things at once while you are learning, and see how high your cpu will go at temps that are acceptable for your cooling, and once you settle on an overclock that is good for you, THEN you can go and mess around with the RAM and timings/speeds

Thanks for the replies, 3.0 is good enough for me (I want higher but...), 1.38V does not seem like overkill, temps are 30C idle and 45 load -- so I am not worried about it. I just wanted to make sure I was not doing anything blantantly wrong. Now that I think back on it, I think I was messing with too many things at once, mabe one day I will retry. I am just a little shy right now, a month ago I followed a guide from extremeforums and somehow my CPU got hosed, Intel sent me an e6600 in place of an e6420 cause they were out of stock So once again I thank you and keep up the good work!

That is a strange one, and it is the first time Ive heard of it. What make and model of drive is it?

Also, the black slots are the jmicron controller, and unless you actually use the IDE slot, esata, or have run out of red sata slots, it is always best to disable the jmicron controller in the BIOS as they are well known for causing problems.

If anyone else has similar problems, I will add it to the troubleshooting bit.

i think the black slots are also Intel RAID - i have all six of the slots being used, and they all install under intel. The eSATA is Jmicron.

So...I'm watching "The Rock", all of a sudden, Alarm bells start ringing....literally.

ASUS Probe tells me that my VCORE fluctuated to 1.72 V from around 1.4 then returned to normal, I assume instantly.

Currently been running ORTHOS for 7Hrs 21Mins at 3Ghz...everything normal..

Does this happen?

Likely cause?

Temps still 54 Degrees.

Holy crap, your luck your chip is ok. Hopefully the mobo detected the spike and hopefully protected the CPU but who knows how that stuff works. The P5K Asus forum posted the voltage should go down as the load rises, not spike like that.